A Place at the Table

Sermon preached at Celebration Lutheran, East Wenatchee, the Sunday after a retirement.

Matthew 10:40-42

[Jesus said to the twelve:] ⁴⁰“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. ⁴¹Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; ⁴²and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”

I had to smile when I first read this morning’s gospel in the context of preaching and presiding at Celebration Lutheran today. When I came back to this synod, the synod of my internship, after my six years in rural Western Iowa, one of the pastors who offered me the most memorable welcome was Dave Haven. We were in Spokane for a stewardship event and ended up talking late into the night about South Dakota, Concordia College, the ELCA Youth Gatherings, and outdoor ministries. I later knew Dave to be a pastor very comfortable up front leading, making us laugh, singing our hearts out. But his first welcome to me was that long conversation about ministry and the church and what I hoped for my new call. He truly welcomed me, and I suspect many of you have similar stories. What a gift you had to celebrate his years of ministry in this place and to have what we in the church call “a good ending.”

I know from perusing your website, hearing about your congregation over the years, meeting some of your members, reading recent newsletters, that Pastor Dave was not the only one who knows a thing or two about welcoming people. Your building appears to be a place of welcome for a variety of outside groups, but hospitality and mission are not limited to the confines of these walls. And let’s be clear, our passage from Matthew is all about mission.

Our three verses from Matthew’s gospel today come at the end of a long discourse by Jesus. All of Matthew chapter 10 is Jesus sending out the Twelve Apostles in mission. Sometimes this chapter is called the “missionary discourse.” Jesus offers words of guidance, warning, and promise about the disciples’ mission. 

Here’s a summary: These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions (5). If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town (14). See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves (16). So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered (26). Whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me (34). And finally, whoever welcomes you welcomes me (40). 

In other words, Jesus is sending them into a dangerous world as part of his mission to love, save, bless and be reconciled to that world. But the disciples will find welcome. Those who welcome them also welcome and receive Jesus. 

As the bishop of our synod, I would be remiss if I did not share how Celebration Lutheran’s welcome extends beyond even this valley in real and vital ways. I mentioned Lutheran Campus Ministry in my greetings from the synod, but I want to tell you a story now about our collective impact on one college campus.

Since our inception as a synod, we have supported three campus ministries: at Eastern Washington University in Cheney, at Wazoo in Pullman and University of Idaho in Moscow. ELCA Deacon Karla Newman-Smiley has been campus minister at University of Idaho for over twenty years. For over twenty years, Karla has been showing up for students, faculty, and staff in Moscow, Idaho. She has again and again been a voice of welcome on that campus and in that community. She has continued to hone her skills, becoming a spiritual director, and she has participated in many campus committees and ecumenical endeavors. 

Last fall, the University of Idaho campus was rocked in a way it had never been, when four students were murdered. Life for the campus had finally returned to normal after the pandemic academic years and suddenly there was this tragedy of four deaths. What’s more, there was deep fear and anxiety. 

In the early hours of Monday, Nov. 14, the University of Idaho’s Office of the Dean of Students contacted various student ministries in an effort to provide counseling and other services to over 10,000 University of Idaho students. Karla noted in an interview that she found her “purpose to be supporting the Dean of Students and keeping The Center (formerly the Campus Christian Center) open as a space for students, faculty and staff, even though right now it feels like a suspended space.” 

While the campus felt deserted, there were some students who could not leave. Some students were local to the Moscow region. And of course there are faculty members also live in the university town. 

Karla had to break off one interview when a student knocked on her door. Later, a faculty member sought her out because they needed to talk. When Karla was able to return to the interview she explained that international students are on campus throughout the Thanksgiving break. Not only are they far from home, but many are not followers of Judeo-Christian religions. 

Organizations like Moscow Interfaith Association, work with The Center to provide spiritual support for all students of all faiths or no faith. Though The Center is supported by seven mainline Protestant denominations, Karla said there is “no need to proselytize” and The Center is available to everyone: it provides a welcome to all.

After the Thanksgiving Break, on Dec. 1, the University of Idaho held a candle vigil for the community. A few university staff spoke, and members of the victims’ families shared words. One campus minister was invited to pray—ELCA Deacon Karla Newman-Smiley. I cried so many tears when I watched the recording, tears of sadness for the families and community, tears of grief for our broken world, tears of weariness. But I also cried tears of gratitude for Karla’s presence. Karla’s words also led me to shed tears of hope in the God whose welcome is constant and steady, the God whose welcome never tires, never wavers.

I wish I could tell you the impact Karla’s prayer had on the students and families but it would only be conjecture. But what I want to say is to you today is thank you for being part of the Lutheran Campus Ministry story in this synod. Thank you for supporting a deacon who has welcomed people into various spaces for over twenty years. It should not surprise any of us that Karla was then invited and welcomed to offer words of prayer when tragedy struck. She, like you and me, is a theologian of the cross. She was able to name in truthful, loving, accessible language that the God of Jesus Christ is in the hidden, unexpected, and broken spaces of life, like Moscow, Idaho in the fall of 2022.

We have many gifts in our tradition, but one is the ability to grieve as community. When a pastoral transition occurs, we take time to laugh and cry and tell stories, to acknowledge our grief. When young people die tragically, we dig into the well of lament, crying out to God with our anguish, and knowing that God welcomes those cries because it means we are in relationship with God and with one another. We grieve because it is what the saints before us have done for centuries. Like them we grieve ultimately as people with hope, not false hope or hope full of sentimentality, but the deep Easter hope that is ours not just one Sunday in April, but all year long. Thanks be to God.

Message for Sunday Worship at Flathead Lutheran Bible Camp’s 2023 Women’s Retreat

(Adapted from a tvprays.org reflection and my dissertation)

What is it that drives us to love our neighbors, to boldly give people a glimpse of the reign of God through congregational ministries and our daily lives? For us, the scriptural principal of agape, which Jesus uses in Mark 12:31, continues to guide us: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Experiencing the agape of Jesus, how can we not want others to experience it? In a culture filled with options, filled with advertisements, filled with promises, we cannot assume people will experience God’s love. And we should never assume that the paid congregational staff are the only ones equipped and empowered to share the agape of Jesus. 

Laying the groundwork for what later became known as the Priesthood of All Believers, Martin Luther wrote, “For all Christians whatsoever really and truly belong to the religious class, and there is no difference among them except in so far as they do different work. That is St. Paul’s meaning, in I Corinthians 12, when he says: ‘We are all one body, yet each member bath his own work for serving others.’ This applies to us all, because we have on baptism, one gospel, one faith, and are all equally Christian” (An Appeal to the Ruling Class). 

There is another metaphor of Paul’s that I find equally helpful, and that was true before the pandemic had me utilizing the postal service at a new pace. In 2 Corinthians, Paul mentions other apostles whom he calls “super-apostles” (2 Corinthians 11:5, 12:11) and “false apostles” (2 Corinthians 11:13). 

These traveling missionaries have come to Corinth after Paul left. Now, impressed by these new apostles’ credentials, the Corinthians may be asking about Paul’s credentials. Earlier in the letter, Paul tells the Corinthians that he and Timothy do not need letters of recommendation since the Corinthians themselves are a letter recommending Paul’s ministry.

 “3Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Surely, we do not need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you or from you, do we? ²You yourselves are our letter, written on our^* hearts, to be known and read by all; ³and you show that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.”(2 Cor. 3:1-3)

I have always been a proponent of letter writing and still have, in various shoeboxes, the letters my parents and I wrote to one another during my many months at summer camp and my first few years in college, before email replaced letters. With all of this as background, I love the metaphor of people being the letters.

The Apostle Paul’s opponents seem to have pointed out that he did not have “letters of recommendation bearing the imperial seal in order to verify [his] identity.” Paul contrasts letters written on paper and letters written on the heart. One scholar explains that this is “a representation of Paul’s fundamental dualism of ‘letter vs. spirit’ (2 Cor. 3:6), which is consistently applied to his interpretation of the Torah (or Law) . . . this defensive rhetoric of Paul, wonderful as it may sound, turned out to be completely ineffective in the presence of people who demanded nothing other than hard proof.” The argument may not have worked on Paul’s opponents, but it absolutely worked on me.

I serve a congregation that puts more emphasis on our actions rather than our words, so to me this Scripture passage also seems to serve as a bridge to something more. Yes, our actions of growing food, providing housing, practicing hospitality, and loving our neighbors will always be paramount. But we also understand the power of language and are slowly growing our skills in telling our faith stories. 

Eventually, both our words and our actions will be the letters of recommendation for the congregation, the larger Christian church, and the triune God we worship. 

We all have the potential to be the letters of recommendation to the communities we live in and to the world, letters of Jesus’ agape. Our very human hearts are filled with the love of Jesus. That love is made known in feeding and housing people, caring for the neighbor, learning about the world we inhabit, disrupting racism, and advocating for marginalized people or the natural world.